May 22, 2017   - Braised radishes with Portobello mushrooms – peasant style

        AHH, didn’t I say the easiest way to get rain for the garden was to start a walking regime for my health?  Three days and evenings, I have been rained out now.  The other nice thing about this is a “FREE” car wash.

        The gardens are nice and wet and when the sun comes out I expect HUGE growth from – herbs, flowers and vegetables.  It will be an explosion! [I imagine the weeds too - ouch.]

        The radishes have been coming in for several weeks and they were getting very “HOT” to the taste with more sun than moisture.   Some are so large now they are starting to split with all this rain.

        I hate for them to go to waste – they are so pretty – but exceptionally hot – yet flesh is still tender.  I pulled several to test a Braised  Radishes with Honey and Lemon recipe.   You might have noticed from past blogs – I rarely follow the recipe exactly when it comes to vegetables side dishes or entrees.  When it comes to baking items – I follow the recipe exactly – but everything else – I sort of use a recipe as a jumping off point and look in the refrigerator to see what I want to add.

        I recently found this recipe going through another stash of papers and kept it because braising [cooking] radishes tames the natural pepperiness of them.  At this point – my radishes need serious taming.

        Original recipe has the following:

2 TB honey

1 TB each lemon juice and vinegar

1 TB olive oil

2 large bunches radishes, roots trimmed and cut into halves

1 tsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground pepper

1 TB chopped fresh chives.

Directions:  Whisk honey, lemon juice and vinegar in a small bowl. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add radishes and sauté 2 minutes. Add honey mixture and stir to coat.  Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper and chives.  Serve warm or room temp. Serves 4.

        How I made my Braised radishes with Portobello mushrooms.

        Handful of fresh radishes – 4 big ones, trimmed and cut into quarters.  5 or 6 small Portobello mushrooms – all trimmed and cut into quarters. In a medium sized skillet I melt 1 TB of butter [YES real butter] and 1 TB of olive oil until it sizzles a bit. Then, I tossed in the mushrooms and sauté until coated well with oil/butter. Then, I added the radishes.  I grind some sea salt and ground pepper over the top.  Shake the pan and toss the ingredients so they cook evenly.  About 4 minutes cook time – tossing often.  I added about ½ cup of sliced romaine lettuce [as in let’s wilt some of it] and tossed it in for about 1/2 a minute. I turned off the heat, added ¼ up of [or I would call it two good pinches] of Parmesan cheese. [This made a serving for one - moi.]

        I located a low pasta bowl and slide it gently into the bowl and voila – I had it for brunch.   SO WONDERFUL. Who needed the honey and vinegar? Not me.  The radishes were al dente and the mushrooms were scrumptious.  The wilted lettuce was a nice foil for the Parmesan cheese.

        Yes, it is fun to experiment with what is coming out of the garden – even when you have too much, too late, too hot, etc.  It is how the peasants used to live . . . it is now how this peasant lives.